▪ I. patience, n.
(ˈpeɪʃəns)
Forms: 3–6 paci-, 4–6 pacy-, -ence, -ens(e, 6– patience.
[ME. a. OF. patience, pacience (12th c.), ad. L. patientia, f. patient-em suffering, patient: see -ence.]
I. The practice or quality of being patient.
1. a. The suffering or enduring (of pain, trouble, or evil) with calmness and composure; the quality or capacity of so suffering or enduring.
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 180 To þe uttre temptaciun is neod pacience, þet is þolemodnesse. 1340 Ayenb. 33 Ase he ne may no þing bere be boȝsamnesse, he ne may þolye be paciense. c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. ii. pr. vii. 93 (Camb. MS.), Yif þat he wolde han suffred lyhtly in pacience the wronges þat weeren don vn to hym. c 1440 Love Bonavent. Mirr. v. (Sherard MS.), Ȝif we cowde wel kepe pacience in tyme of aduersite. 1553 Duke of Northumberland in Four C. Eng. Lett. (1880) 22 God grant me pacyence to endure. 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, i. i. 126 Rich... How hath your Lordship brook'd imprisonment? Hast. With patience (Noble Lord) as prisoners must. 1658 Whole Duty Man ii. §5 Patience..is nothing else, but a willing and quiet yielding to whatever afflictions it pleases God to lay upon us. 1784 Cowper Task iv. 339 That thus We may with patience bear our moderate ills. 1849 M. Arnold To Gypsy Child by Sea Shore 13 Drugging pain by patience. 1868 Swinburne Blake 63 He endured all the secret slights and wants..with a most high patience. |
b. Forbearance, longsuffering, longanimity under provocation of any kind; esp. forbearance or bearing with others, their faults, limitations, etc.
| 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xiv. 99 Þere parfit treuthe and pouere herte is, and pacience of tonge; Þere is charitee. 1481 Caxton Reynard xxix. (Arb.) 73 He shold the better haue pacience and pyte on Reynarte. 1591 Shakes. Two Gent. iv. iv. 116, I doe intreat your patience To heare me speake. 1598 ― Merry W. i. iv. 5 Here will be an old abusing of Gods patience, and Kings English. 1662 Stillingfl. Orig. Sacr. ii. vi. §13 The patience and long-suffering of God, leading men to repentance. 1764 Foote Patron ii. Wks. 1799 I. 348 Bev. I am happy, Sir Thomas, if—. Sir Tho. Your patience. There is in you, Mr. Bever, a fire of imagination [etc.]. 1873 Morley Rousseau II. 93 His discipular patience when Rousseau told him that his verses were poor,..is a little uncommon in a prince. |
c. The calm abiding of the issue of time, processes, etc.; quiet and self-possessed waiting for something; ‘the quality of expecting long without rage or discontent’ (J.).
| c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints iii. (Andreas) 405 Ȝet wil I with paciens a quhil here þe. 1382 Wyclif Luke xxi. 19 In ȝoure pacience ȝe schulen welde ȝoure soulis [1526 Tindale, With your pacience possesse your soules]. 1475 Sir J. Paston in P. Lett. III. 130, I beseche yow off pacyence tyll the begynnyng of the next yeer. 1526 Tindale Jas. v. 7 The husbande man wayteþ for the precious frute offe the erth, and hath long pacience there vppon, vntill he receave the yerly and the latter rayne. 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 153 He had not the patience to expect a present, but demanded one. 1654 Whitelocke Jrnl. Swed. Emb. (1772) II. 401 Their ambassador..was put to the patience of staying an hower and a halfe..before he was called in to his highnes. 1796 H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) III. 87 Behold the fruits of eleven years patience. 1866 Ruskin Eth. Dust iv. 61 Patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude,—and the rarest, too. |
d. Constancy in labour, exertion, or effort.
| 1517 R. Torkington Pilgr. (1884) 55 The same nyght, with grett Diffyculty and moche paciens, we war Delivered a borde into ower Shippe. a 1774 W. Harte Eulogius Poems (1810) 382/2 He learnt with patience, and with meekness taught. 1795 Southey Joan of Arc ii. 190 We..in the fight opposed..to the exasperate patience of the foe, Desperate endurance. 1871 Darwin Desc. Man iii. xix. (1874) 565 Genius has been declared by a great authority to be patience; and patience, in this sense, means unflinching, undaunted perseverance. |
e. Personified, or represented in a figure.
| 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xiii. 29 Pacience in þe paleis stode in pilgrymes clothes, And preyde mete for charite. 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xx. (Percy Soc.) 96 To wofull creatures she is goodly leche, Wyth her good syster called Pacyence. 1601 Shakes. Twel. N. ii. iv. 117 She sate, like Patience on a Monument, Smiling at greefe. 1884 Henley & Stevenson Three Plays, Beau Austin i. ii, I cannot away with your pale cheeks and that Patience-on-a-Monument kind of look. |
f. Phrases and locutions:
† patience perforce, patience upon compulsion, i.e. when there is no other course (obs.). my patience! an ejaculation of surprise (colloq.). patience! have patience! be patient; wait a little; give or allow sufficient time. to have patience with († in, toward), to show forbearance toward; so, to have no patience with (colloq.), to be unable to bear patiently, to be irritated by. out of patience, advb. phr. (sometimes adj.), provoked so as no longer to have patience (with). † to take in patience, to receive or accept with resignation (obs.).
| 1575 Gascoigne Weedes (title) *Patience Perforce. Content thy selfe with patience perforce. 1607 Heywood Wom. Killed w. Kindn. Plays 1874 II. 138 Here's patience perforce, He needs must trot afoot that tires his horse. 1670 Ray Proverbs 130 Patience perforce is a medicine for a mad dog. |
| 1873 Murdoch Doric Lyre 33 *Ma patience, that beats a'! |
| c 1489 Caxton Sonnes of Aymon i. 58 My dere moder *haue a lytyll pacyence. 1705 Vanbrugh Confed. iii. ii, Flip. Have patience, and it shall be done. 1765 Gray Shakespeare 1 A moment's patience, gentle Mistress Anne. 1847 Tennyson Princ. Concl. 72 ‘Have patience’, I replied, ‘ourselves are full Of social wrong’. Ibid. 78 This..world of ours is but a child Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time To learn its limbs. |
| 1382 Wyclif Matt. xviii. 26 *Haue pacience in me, and alle thingis I shal ȝeelde to thee. 1526 Tindale 1 Thess. v. 14 Forbeare the weake, have continuall pacience towarde alle men. 1855 Thackeray Newcomes lxiv, I have no patience with the Colonel. |
| 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 341 Archias beeyng throughly *out of pacience thretened to pull hym parforce out of the temple. 1686 tr. Chardin's Trav. Persia 34 Which put the Vizier so out of Patience. 1804 M. G. Lewis Bravo of Venice (1856) II. iv. 316 [He] was out of all patience with himself. |
| c 1386 Chaucer Knt.'s T. 226 *Taak al in pacience Oure prisoun, for it may noon oother be. |
g. muscle of patience, patience muscle: the levator muscle of the shoulder.
| 1730–6 Bailey (folio), Patientiæ musculus (with Anatomists), the muscle of patience, so called from the great service of it in labour. It is the same as Levator Scapulæ. |
2. With of: The fact or capacity of enduring; patient endurance of. Cf. impatience 1 b. rare.
| 1530 Tindale Answ. More iii. xiii. C iij b, Why setteth he not his eyes on the thankes geuynge for that pleasure and on the pacience of other displeasures? 1718 Prior Solomon ii. 890 Patience of toil, and love of virtue fails. 1741 Middleton Cicero II. x. 366 Patience of injuries. 1772 Ann. Reg. 44/1 That patience of hunger, and every kind of hardship. |
† 3. Sufferance; indulgence; leave, permission; chiefly in by or with your patience. Obs.
| 1558 Fraunce Lawiers Log. Ded. ¶ij b, By your patience be it spoken. 1583 Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. (1882) 66 And thus much with their patience be it spoken briefly hereof. 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, ii. iii. 78 Nor other satisfaction do I craue, But onely with your patience, that we may Taste of your Wine. 1610 ― Temp. iii. iii. 3, I can goe no further, Sir,..by your patience, I needes must rest me. |
II. Special senses.
4. Name for a species of Dock, called by the old herbalists Patientia (Rumex Patientia Linn.), formerly used in Britain instead of spinach, in salads, etc. Sometimes extended to other species of Dock: wild patience, Rumex obtusifolius. See also patience-dock, passions, dock n.1 1 b.
[The origin of this name has not been traced.]
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 376/1 Pacyence, herbe, paciencia. c 1450 Two Cookery-bks. ii. 69 Take Colys,..Betus and Borage, auens, Violette, Malvis, parsle, betayn, pacience, þe white of the lekes, and þe croppe of þe netle. 1538 Turner Libellus B ij, Hippolapathon, officine patientiam uocant, vulgus Patience. 1546 J. Heywood Prov. (1867) 37 Let pacience growe in your gardein alwaie. 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. lxxviii. §7. 314 The Monkes Rubarbe is called in Latine Rumex satium, and Patientia, or Patience, which worde is borrowed of the French, who call this herbe Pacience. 1611 Florio, Lapato, the wild Dock or Patience. 1629 Parkinson Parad. in Sole ii. xiv. 483 Garden Patience is a kinde of Docke. 1712 tr. Pomet's Hist. Drugs I. 44 The Leaves are like enough those of Wild Patience. 1882 J. Smith Dict. Econ. Plants, Herb of Patience (Rumex Patientia). 1886 G. Nicholson Dict. Gard., Patience or Herb Patience,..a hardy perennial..the leaves of which were formerly much used in the place of Spinach. |
5. A game of cards (either ordinary playing cards, or small cards marked with numbers), in which the cards are taken as they come from the pack or set, and the object is to arrange them in some systematic order; usually for one person alone (in which case also called solitaire).
| 1816 W. Warden Lett. Conduct Napoleon (ed. 4) 198 He is sent to the sideboard to play at Patience until the new pack would deal with more facility. 1822 Lady Granville Lett. (1894) I. 220 We were occupied all yesterday evening with conjuring tricks and patiences of every kind. 1861 Dickens Gt. Expect. xl, Playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of cards. 1874 Lady Cadogan (title) Illustrated Games of Patience. 1901 Munsey's Mag. (U.S.) XXIV. 873/1 This is a difficult Patience to get; its solution depends on watchfulness and luck. |
6. attrib. and Comb., as patience-trying adj.; (sense 5) patience board, patience card, patience case, patience pack, patience player.
| 1890 Anthony's Photogr. Bull. III. 119 It was tiresome, patience-trying work and reminded me of the old dissected puzzles of my boyhood. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 11 Jan. 2/1 Always, like a skilful patience player, leave vacancies for last chances. 1901 Munsey's Mag. (U.S.) XXIV. 872/1 It is much more satisfactory to use a regular Patience pack than to play with ordinary cards. The Patience cards are only two and a half by one and three fourths inches. 1907 Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 379/2 Patience and ‘Pigmy’ Cards. Rounded corners, printed backs, two packs in a box. Ibid. 380/1 Patience Board With Cards. 1916 J. Buchan Greenmantle ii. 24 From his pocket he had taken a pack of Patience cards and had begun to play the game called the Double Napoleon. 1926–7 Army & Navy Stores Catal. 392 Patience Board. For playing the game of Patience off the table. |
▪ II. ˈpatience, v. rare.
[f. prec.]
† 1. trans. To endow with patience, make patient; refl. to be patient, have patience. Cf. patient v. 1.
| 1605 Play Stucley in Simpson Sch. Shaks. (1878) I. 159 Patience but yourself awhile. |
2. intr. To have or exercise patience.
| 1596 Nashe Saffron Walden D ij, To warne the blue⁓coate Corrector when he should patience and surcease. 1835 New Monthly Mag. XLIV. 337, I had ‘swam on a gondola’ at Venice, and ‘patienced’ in a punt at Putney. |